


Scars

by sara_merry99



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Drama, M/M, Other: See Story Notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 09:51:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/796924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sara_merry99/pseuds/sara_merry99
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim and Blair share scars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scars

## Scars

#### by Sara

Author's website: <http://www.geocities.com/sara_merry99/>  
Jim and Blair belong to Paramount and Pet Fly and many other lucky people. I'm just borrowing them for a bit.  
Betas: Singer--who liked the idea, Zaeria--who gave me confidence, and Lyra--who fixed a lot of things and made it much better! Thanks, ladies! Where it is weak, it is probably because I ignored one or all of them.  
Advertisement: Part of the Slash Advent Calendar of 2003 at http://www.kardasi.com/Advent/2004/SAC-2004.htm  
  
There is a little bit of violence in the background of the story, but not in the story's present. There is also a wee tiny bit of bad language. It has some self-mutilation, but religious/spiritual not psychological in origin. Mainly, there's just a lot of strangeness.  
  


* * *

With a gentle fingertip, Jim traced a silvery line that ran across Blair's thigh. "And this one?" 

Blair laughed. "I fell off a demon disguised as a horse." Jim raised an eyebrow skeptically and Blair went on, "Naomi left me with my cousins in Texas for a summer so she could have some intensive study with her guru in India. They took me to the Rocking K Dude Ranch." 

Jim pictured a young Blair as he'd seen him in Naomi's photographs--hair short and madly curly, thick glasses perched on a small pug nose, arms full of books--at a dude ranch, and smiled. 

"Get that grin off your face man. I did all right. Except the first day. My aunt and uncle and cousins were all real experienced riders. So the ranchers picked more ... challenging horses for our party. Of course, I'd never even seen one up close and personal before. And I was on this fire red horse named The Bastard." 

Jim snorted. "How old were you? You sound like you were too young for that kind of language." 

"Twelve." Blair smiled. "Maybe that wasn't its official name, but I definitely remember one of the ranch hands calling it that. I think it was introduced to me as Flame or something trite like that." 

"So what did Flame do?" Jim said, running his hand over the scar in a soothing gesture. Though he wasn't at all sure who he was supposed to be soothing. 

"Threw me almost the instant my butt hit the saddle. The scar's from where my leg hit the paddock fence." Blair chuckled. "It actually worked out just fine. The ranch gave us an extra two days there and I started again with a nice horse, Little Ben, and we all wound up having a great time. Aunt Ruth was able to stay with us and Uncle Eldon even took an extra day off work to stay there longer." Blair held up a hand and pointed to a faint scar that crossed two of his knuckles. "That one's from where the rope bit into me when I roped a goat the last day we were there. That was cool." 

Jim smiled, sharing Blair's enjoyment of the happy memory. It wasn't just a reflected sharing for him, empathically sharing his partner's joy. His senses allowed him to take his own unique pleasure in it, the feel of Blair's skin as it rippled next to him as he wriggled happily, the musical sound of Blair's laugh, the wonderful, almost yeasty smell of a happy Blair. It all added up to a sensual feast that he knew he never would grow tired of. 

Blair shook him out of his reverie by tackling him and pushing him over. "Hey, man. I think I'm going to insist that this bed is a no-zoning zone." Jim smiled and pretended to resist for a second before lying back. Blair studied him for a minute, hands skimming over his body, just barely not touching. "Pick one to tell me about, Jim. I know a lot of them are classified, so I don't want to ask." 

Jim propped himself up on one elbow and surveyed his body. Finally he pointed to one scar on his bicep, "That one's from a surfing accident." 

"Where were you?" 

"Diamond Head. This was on my way back from Bali; I had two weeks of debriefing in Hawaii. I spent most of my downtime surfing there. It was amazing. The ocean is so blue and the water so warm. Incredible." Jim let himself go for a moment remembering the beauty of Hawaii. "There was a big crowd that day and the surf was huge. There was a collision out at the lineup and I got cut--I think on the fin of one of the other guy's boards." 

"It looks like it went pretty deep," Blair said, studying the irregular scar. 

"Yeah. I probably should have gotten stitches, but I didn't want to stop surfing. So I just bound it up tight and got back in the water." 

"Didn't you worry about attracting sharks?" 

"I probably should have, but I did have it well bound and kept it out of the water as much as possible. And...I just couldn't leave." Jim realized for the first time that it was curious, his reluctance to leave the beach that day. It wasn't like him to be that irresponsible. 

Blair stroked over the scar and then up Jim's arm and over his chest, stopping only a moment to test the responsiveness of a nipple. Jim sighed at the pleasure, but was spent from their earlier lovemaking. Blair's hand stopped moving. "You know what I think?" Blair asked. "I think your senses were a little drunk on the sensual feast of the beach--water and sun and ocean smells. You were repressing them at the time, but as we've seen, even when repressed they're still taking stuff in." 

Nodding slowly, Jim said, "Yeah, maybe. Maybe that's part of why I like surfing so much." He smiled. "So the senses were good for something even before I met you," he said, reaching out a long arm to grab Blair and pull him close. "Who knew?" 

Jim could feel Blair smiling against his shoulder and started stroking along his back, feeling the knobs and bumps along his spine. At the base of Blair's spine, his fingers felt another scar, a thin, rough line, just at the top of the crack of his ass. "So what's this one from?" He asked lightly, enjoying this process of sharing histories while sharing skin. 

Blair tensed for a moment, surprising Jim. Blair had been so open about everything, open and unconcealed and unprotected ever since they started making love two weeks before. And now, he would swear that his exceptional hearing was picking up the sound of Blair's self-protective barriers being erected again. 

When Blair answered, a heartbeat too late and in a voice ringing with forced brightness, he said, "That's from when Naomi and I were abducted by aliens." Blair chuckled, but there was a note of falseness in the sound and Jim wasn't convinced by the clearly misdirecting humor. 

"Aliens?" Jim asked, letting Blair regain his equilibrium by playing along with his story. 

"Yeah. We were in the desert near Taos and a big flying saucer, with flashing red and green lights spelling out 'Ban the Bomb', came down and these grey aliens with big eyes and antennae that went beep took us. They wanted samples." Blair was telling the story like a big joke, in a country accent like so many people who claimed to be abductees. 

"Samples?" 

"Body tissues, skin. You know, the usual." 

Jim stroked the scar at the top of Blair's ass again and very deliberately gave Blair the gift of ignoring his tiny flinch. "I thought most aliens wanted semen samples, ova, stuff like that." 

Blair grinned, his heart rate still too wild for Jim to believe it. "These weren't very bright aliens, man. I think they took a shit sample." 

"They must have known you were full of it, Chief." Jim swatted Blair's butt then cuddled him close for a few minutes. "Hey, let's go get dinner? My treat. I'll take you out to the Thai place you like. And I think the Arts Council is showing The Maltese Falcon in the park. The weather's perfect for it--not too hot and it hasn't rained in two days so the ground will be dry." 

"Sounds great!" Blair said, with just a little too much enthusiasm. "Just let me take a quick shower and get dressed and I'll be ready to go." As Jim made the reservations, he heard Blair whisper, "Thanks, Jim, for letting it go" as his lover got in the shower. 

"For now," Jim muttered to himself as he hung up the phone. 

Jim promised himself he'd restrain his curiosity about that scar, his concern for Blair, as long as it took for Blair to feel comfortable enough to tell him about it. 

That promise lasted only the rest of the evening. They lay in bed together that night in each other's arms as they had every night since becoming lovers. Jim said, softly, "It wasn't aliens, Blair. Tell me about that scar." 

Blair rested his cheek against the top of Jim's head and said, "I can't right now. Can I ask you not to push me about it?" 

Jim tightened his arm around Blair's waist and held him close, kissing Blair's shoulder where his head rested on it. "You sure you don't want to talk? You keep telling me it's better to talk about things rather than keeping them to yourself." 

"Probably. But things are...I...just can't." 

Jim pushed down his curiosity, his detective instincts. He kissed Blair's shoulder again and said, "Okay. That I can definitely understand. We'll leave it until you're ready." 

Blair snorted a laugh and said, "Yeah. Figured you could relate to not wanting to talk about things." 

Blair fell asleep quickly, as always. And, as always, Jim stayed in a muzzy state of half-sleep, listening to his partner's heart beating right under his ear. Every night he let the love he felt for Blair swell in him until his whole body tingled, buoyed by the wonderful emotion. 

Their relationship was based on love, affection, caring, mutual need and many other things, not merely sex. Jim was sure they both knew it, but they didn't talk about it. Jim refused to open a discussion that would have to go through the uncomfortable and unpleasant ground of trust and betrayal, Alex, the dissertation, and the press conference. So, by some sort of unspoken agreement, they avoided the discussion, avoided the verbal expression of their mutual love, and hoped that the emotions could be conveyed through sex. 

So Jim nurtured his love for Blair every night, in the silence and darkness of the loft, letting the rhythm of Blair's heartbeat become the rhythm of his whole world. Letting the feeling of love be all the light he could see, or imagine ever needing. 

* * *

Months later, they were sleeping in each others arms as always. The darkness and quiet wrapped around them like a blanket. A sudden moaning noise made Jim gasp and jerk awake. Blair moaned again next to him, twitching slightly in the throes of some nightmare. Blair started whimpering, a regular high-pitched noise of distress. Jim could smell the scent of tears, though he couldn't see the tracks of any on Blair's face. 

Experience, particularly in the last week of almost nightly nightmares, taught Jim how best to help his love through this. He pulled Blair close, stroking over his arms and making soothing noises, "I'm here. It's okay. I'm here. Shh." He spoke softly, mindlessly, just letting the reassurance of his touch and his presence calm. 

A minute later, Blair's breath evened out and he stopped shaking. A few moments after that, he snuffled and stretched and kissed Jim on the collar bone, the nearest bit of skin, and fell back to sleep, clinging tightly, with a tiny trace of moisture from restrained tears falling onto Jim's chest. 

Jim held him and, wondering what it had been this time--Lash or Alex or Galileo or Golden Fire People or... fell back to sleep himself. 

The next morning, Jim woke to the smells of coffee and toast and Blair beating eggs in the kitchen. Bleary eyed, he staggered downstairs to the bathroom. 

By the time he emerged ten minutes later--showered and brushed and generally feeling more awake and ready for the day--the table was set, a mug of coffee was at his plate, and Blair was dishing up the eggs. "Good morning," Blair said, stealing a quick kiss as he passed. 

Jim held his waist and kept him close so they could share a longer kiss. He remembered Blair's nightmare. Sometimes an easy, regular question was enough to get the story of his nightmares from Blair. Most of the time Blair didn't remember them, or said he didn't. "Good morning, Chief. How'd you sleep?" 

Blair tensed and froze for a moment. Jim looked up sharply and watched as Blair said, "I slept pretty well, I think." 

Jim shrugged nonchalantly, saying, "You seemed to be having another nightmare." 

"Yeah? I guess I remember that there was something really unpleasant going on. I vaguely recall cuddling up to you and you holding me." Blair set the pan down in the sink and filled it with water. He turned to Jim and smiled, his face full of love and a longing that Jim couldn't understand. "You held me and I was okay then. Thanks." 

Cataloging his partner's responses, like he would catalog those of a suspect, Jim was surprised that Blair wasn't being entirely truthful with him about not remembering. "You sure you don't want to talk about it?" 

Blair looked up from the pan he was washing. "You're doing your lie detector thing on me, aren't you?" Jim nodded. Blair scowled, then went back to washing. "Whatever. I remember just enough to know I don't want to go there, okay?" 

Jim nodded reluctantly, not completely convinced that he wanted to drop the issue, but also not willing to push his lover. 

While they were doing the dishes, they got a call from Simon about a dead body at the waterfront and rolled out to start the investigation. Jim grabbed both of their heavy coats and handed Blair his as they walked out the door. 

When they arrived at the crime scene, a light fall of large snowflakes was casting an almost attractive veil over the bustle of the forensic technicians and officers. Blair smiled when Dan Wolfe greeted them with a lazily drawled, "Hey, Detectives." Two officers were busy taping off the area, another was interviewing the dockworker who found the body, a few more keeping back the small group of people milling around. 

Blair waved and grinned. "Hi, Dan. What have we got here?" 

"Well, he's a white male, mid-30s, well dressed. Identification in his pocket says he's Michael Andrane, lives in White Spring. Pretty fancy neighborhood." 

Jim looked down at the body, noticing that there were no obvious bloodstains on the wet clothes or visible wounds on the body. "Cause of death?" 

Dan gave him a lazy scowl, saying, "I won't know for sure until I get him back to the lab. But right now, I'd say drowning." 

Blair looked along the waterfront, at the piers and cranes and a couple of heavy ships tied up with huge cables and at the grey, greasy water beyond. "Lots of water here for him to do it in," he commented. He looked back down at Dan, his face pinched. "Time of death?" 

"Hard to say. From the eyes and state of the body, probably very early morning, 3 or 4 AM." 

Blair made a note of that. "Does he have any connection to the warehouses here?" 

Dan shrugged, said, "Not my department," and turned away to talk with one of his assistants. 

Jim knelt to examine the body. He expected to feel Blair's hand on his shoulder as usual, grounding his senses, and to hear Blair's voice providing commentary. Instead there was absolute stillness and near-absolute silence. He could hear Blair's heart, beating slowly, and his breathing, slightly ragged, but nothing else. He turned to look, Blair was staring at the body, a blank expression on his face. The only movement Blair made was to reach behind himself, toward holster he wore at his back 

Jim immediately switched his sensory focus outward toward the perimeter of the crime scene, away from Blair, looking for a threat that might have had Blair reaching for his gun, but could find nothing. By the time he looked back to his partner, the strange moment of stillness was gone. Blair reached out for him, saying, "Come on, Jim, you've got to focus on the body here for a minute. Can you find anything on him?" 

Jim bagged the evidence from the corpse, some stray hairs and fibers and marked a tiny bloodstain he'd discovered on the sodden cuff. He stood and waved Dan over. "Bag his hands before you transport; it looks like he might have been in a fight." 

Dan nodded. While Dan and his assistant prepared the corpse for transport to the morgue, Jim took Blair aside and asked, "Where were you, Chief?" 

Blair started. "Huh? What? I was standing next to you the whole time." 

"You just seemed kind of out of it for a while there." 

Blair blushed. "Sorry. Drowning victims...they sort of get to me." Before Jim could interject, could reassure, Blair went on, "I'm getting better though, really. I should have it entirely kicked soon. I promise." And then he walked off, marking a stain on the pavement a few feet away with a numbered cone 

Jim gaped at Blair as he walked away, cursing himself for his insensitivity, for his failure to notice. Of course Blair was thrown off by drowning victims, he'd almost become one twice in the years he'd been working with Jim. He trotted up to his partner, carefully avoiding the evidence markers. "I never noticed." 

Blair didn't look up, just said, "I didn't want you to. I'm sorry you noticed today." 

While Jim was swabbing the stain to get a sample, Blair kept running his hand toward his lower back and shaking his head. He started when Jim touched his shoulder. Jim said, "Hey, Chief. You okay? You look like you hurt your back or something." 

Blair looked embarrassed but smiled a little and said, "I'm fine, man. I may have strained it last night or something." 

Jim expected some veiled reference to their lovemaking the night before, at least a wink and a grin, but got nothing other than a half shrug before Blair turned his attention to the forensics technician who had arrived to photograph the scene. Jim looked closely, listened closely, to his partner and almost swore out loud. Damn! Blair was lying again. 

Blair was silent during the drive to the victim's house. He kept his hand on Jim's leg--a familiar gesture in the months since they'd become lovers, one that grounded both of them emotionally. Jim looked over at him when they pulled off the main road into the upscale White Spring development. "Hey, Chief, you okay?" 

There was a delay before Blair responded, and when he finally did his voice sounded lost and a bit disconnected, "Yeah. I'm just thinking about what we're going to be telling the vic's wife." 

Jim nodded. "You want me to handle it?" 

"Nah. No offense, Jim, but I'm better at this than you are." Blair turned to look at Jim, his eyes a little nervous looking. 

Jim gave a smile. "Yeah, you are." 

As they walked up to the door of the large, ultramodern house, Blair bumped shoulders with Jim, a friendly, buddy gesture that carried a wealth of affection and love. 

The woman who opened the door for them was beautiful, with dark auburn hair pulled off of her striking face. She smiled a warm greeting, as though she were welcoming friends. "Hey, what can I do for y'all?" She asked in a voice just tinged with a hint of a southern accent. 

Blair pulled out his badge as he asked, "Loren Andrane?" When she nodded, suddenly more hesitant than before, he asked, gently, "Can we come in, Ma'am?" 

She opened the door wide and led them both into the living room. It was a bright, cheerful room, decorated for the Christmas holidays with bright lights and greenery. She offered them both drinks and encouraged Blair to sit on one end of the long sofa while she fetched the water he asked for. Jim looked around the room, taking in the picture of Mrs. Andrane and the victim, clearly much in love, on vacation in Europe, and a note from Michael Andrane lying on the coffee table. 

While he was looking around, Mrs. Andrane brought Blair's water and they settled themselves on the sofa. When Blair continued, "Ma'am, we're from the Cascade Police Department. We have some bad news for you," Jim watched Mrs. Andrane carefully as Blair told her about her husband's murder. Often anomalies of scent, heart rate, perspiration and other physical cues in these early interviews, when people weren't on their guard, were useful later on. 

He was surprised when she said, "No, Michael can't have died this morning at the waterfront. He's on a business trip to Tacoma and I just spoke to him on the phone sometime around dawn. I could see the light coming through the windows. He said he was coming home." 

There was no fear or alarm on her, not in her scent or her heart rate or her body language. She was simply, absolutely positive that her Michael wasn't the dead man. 

Blair spoke gently. "We were able to match the victim's fingerprints with your husband's print on file with the DMV." 

She shook her head. "I don't care. Perhaps the records are wrong. I tell you I spoke to him after you say he must have died. The man you have isn't Michael." 

Blair turned to Jim, looking uncertain. Jim spoke, for the first time since entering the house, "Mrs. Andrane, perhaps you could help us sort this out by coming downtown with us. If you're right, we'll need to have a definite statement from you that the body we have isn't your husband." 

She didn't say a word as she stood, unplugged the Christmas lights, grabbed her coat and pocket book and scribbled a quick note, which she left on the kitchen table. 

The ride back to the station was even quieter than the one to the house had been. Mrs. Andrane sat in the back, silent and still. Her heart was starting to race and her scent had turned acrid; Jim could tell that she was angry and starting to become scared. Blair sat in the front, all of his attention turned inward on something that was pulling his eyebrows together into a frown. 

At the station, they immediately took Mrs. Andrane down to the morgue. She refused to participate in any questioning or discussion until they had gotten clear the fact that they didn't have her husband down there. 

Blair stood very close to her when Dan pulled out the drawer with the victim in it. Jim could see how quickly her defiant anger turned into horror. She looked at the face of the dead man, cried out once in a moan that sounded like it could have come from the depths of the earth, then went utterly blank. It didn't take extraordinary senses for Jim to feel the bleakness of the future she now saw stretching out ahead of her, where just moments before she had seen joy and possibility. It was written all over her.. 

As she stood there, swaying slightly as if she had been hit in the face instead of the soul, Blair put his hand on her elbow to steady her. Jim could see compassion and fear in Blair's face, an imperfect mirror of the fear in Mrs. Andrane's. Murmuring words of condolence and sympathy, Blair led her away from the body and out of the morgue. 

During their subsequent conversation with the widow, Blair asked all the right questions: did her husband have any enemies? What was his business in Tacoma? Did she have any idea why he had returned early? Did he have any connections with the waterfront? Was there anything missing from his personal effects? But at the same time Jim could tell that he was pensive and worried. 

Throughout the interview, Jim could smell the distinctive scent of fear--from the widow, of course, suddenly terrified of the future. That was to be expected. He was surprised to find that the scent also came from Blair. 

* * *

"Jim, we need to talk," Blair said as soon as the door closed that night. 

Jim looked up from plugging in their own Christmas lights, saw the tension in Blair's posture, smelled the anxiety and said, "Yeah, okay. Sofa?" 

Blair shook his head and gestured toward the stairs to the loft, saying, "Upstairs? I need ... to show you something." 

Jim nodded, confused and curious and followed Blair up the stairs. At the top, Blair kicked off his shoes and started to strip, igniting a familiar heat of desire in Jim. Feeling himself grow hard, Jim began to unbuckle his belt as well, suddenly anxious to get Blair into their bed and make love to him. 

He was stopped by Blair's hands on his, stilling him, and Blair's voice, very soft, saying, "Not yet, okay? Maybe later." 

With a whispered, "Okay", Jim sat on the edge of the bed and watched as Blair removed his clothes, mechanically and without any attempt to seduce or tempt. Blair looked shaken, shattered, like he'd somehow been damaged by the case earlier in the day without Jim really noticing. "You all right, Chief?" Jim asked, knowing the answer but trying to give Blair something to hang on to. A friendly voice, a familiar question, if nothing else. 

Blair turned to him, completely naked now, and shrugged one shoulder uncertainly. "Ask me again in a little while. It's too early to tell right now." 

Jim was surprised by the answer and nodded. "Okay. What do you need me to do?" He kept his eyes on Blair's face, refusing himself the pleasure of looking over Blair's beautiful body. Something serious, uncertain, was happening and Blair didn't need to be ogled during it. 

Blair nodded, as though Jim had passed some sort of test, and climbed onto the bed next to him lying down on his stomach, his head turned away from Jim. "Find that scar again." 

Jim ran his hand across Blair's lower back, a clinical, business-like touch until he located the scar by feel. More or less consciously, he had been avoiding it during the months since they'd first discussed it. But now, he stroked across it with a feather-light fingertip and said softly, "It's right here." 

Blair shuddered, a violent motion completely unlike the passionate shudders that often overtook both of them when they were making love. "I need to tell you now." 

Jim silently stroked Blair's back, lying down so he could be closer to his love, but not touching anywhere except with his fingertips, silently offering comfort. After a few heartbeats Blair continued, speaking quietly, slowly, with a frightening surety in his voice, "There's more than one scar there. Can you see them?" 

Jim focused his sense of touch on the small area, piggybacking sight to follow, and saw three overlapping scars, all fairly recent. "Yeah, they're almost interwoven so they're a little hard to distinguish, but I think I can see three." 

Blair held his breath for a moment, then let it out in a small sigh. "That's all of them." 

Jim felt suddenly furious, enraged at the repeated assaults on his lover, his Guide, his soulmate. He controlled the thunder in his heart, barely, and asked in a growling whisper, "Who did this to you, Blair? When?" 

Blair shrank away from the rage emanating from Jim like a tsunami. "It started when I drowned." 

Jim was confused, the passion of his rage swirling in turbulent eddies. "Alex didn't...when we found you, you weren't ..." 

Blair, impossibly, seemed to shrink even more, until Jim was afraid he'd disappear altogether. "No, not Alex." There was a pause that seemed like the whole universe holding its breath. "Me." Blair halted for a minute, tense. Jim bit his tongue to keep from saying something angry and harsh. "With a hunting knife. I had to." 

The eddies of rage and confusion and Blair's shared pain, experienced as completely as he shared Blair's happiness, flowed. Jim pushed at Blair to roll him over. He saw that he must have used more force than he intended because Blair almost rolled off the big bed, not taking any move to stop himself from falling until Jim reached out to steady him. "Why, Blair? Why did you have to cut yourself?" His voice sounded exhausted and ragged to his own ears and Jim hoped that Blair could hear the love there. 

Blair didn't move, either toward or away from Jim, but his eyes focused on the point of Jim's shoulder and locked there. He spoke quickly, shakily, the only concessions to his nervousness, "It's not pathological or anything, Jim. Really it's not. I'm not like those troubled teens cutting themselves as a way of feeling something. I feel plenty, I promise." 

If he'd been able to make eye contact with his partner Jim would have given him the glare that said, "Get on with it" in no uncertain terms. But Blair was avoiding his eyes, so he settled for a warning grunt and said gruffly, "You cut yourself, more than once and in the most bizarre place I've ever seen. That sounds pretty damned pathological to me." 

Blair sighed and his eyes flicked through the railing of the loft bedroom down toward the door. He sighed and tensed his muscles as if to get up. "I shouldn't have said anything, left you with the alien abduction story." 

The emotional eddies swirled again and Jim was scared. Scared because Blair was scared and Blair was the bravest man he knew. Scared because whatever reason Blair was going to give him for this behavior, he knew it was something he wasn't going to like--or Blair would have just come out and said it. The fear modulated his voice, his mood, and he stroked Blair's shoulder softly. "Just tell me; I'll try not to get mad." 

Blair searched his eyes for a second, and then nodded. "Okay. This is going to be kind of round about though, so be patient." He paused, took a deep breath and said, "When you lost your senses in Peru, how did you get them back?" 

"What the hell has that got to do with anything?" Jim asked, defensive and angry again. When Blair just shrugged and waited for him to answer, Jim looked at him, saw defeat written all over him. He blinked and looked more closely, Blair looked like he had at his press conference, a man in the process of losing everything. Like the widow this afternoon, her future gone suddenly dark. 

Jim sighed and answered the question, "I had a vision with the jaguar turning into a warrior. He told me what I needed to do." 

Blair nodded. "When you got your senses back after Incacha died?" 

Jim fought down his impatience and irritation ."Same thing." 

"How did you know how to bring me back from the," his voice cracked but he continued without a pause, "dead?" 

Jim flinched. Blair couldn't have hit him harder if he'd punched him in the gut. His eyes swam with tears he could never, never let himself shed. "Is that what this is about? You dying?" 

Blair shrugged. "Just answer the question, for right now, Jim. How did you know how to bring me back?" 

Jim let his mind go back to that morning. The clear, bright, objectively beautiful day. The cold sinking terror when he'd seen Blair floating in the fountain. He forced his mind away from all of that, from all the horror and saw again Incacha, speaking English of all things, telling him to use the power of the panther. He reached out to Blair again, holding on to his partner with both hands, feeling the warmth, the pulse, the flow of air into slightly scarred lungs and said, "Incacha told me what to do. He told me to use the power of my animal spirit." The last words were shouted, the tide of anger flowing over him again. 

Blair flinched away from the anger and the shout, but nodded. "Okay. So maybe you'll know I'm not nuts when I tell you that I was told to do it in a vision." 

Jim couldn't stop the reflexive rationality that was his constant companion, that told him his life was impossible and absurd on an almost hourly basis, and he blurted out, "A vision? A vision told you to maim yourself? For God's sake! I'll call the department shrink...." but he couldn't finish the sentence because Blair was out of the bed and walking toward the top of the stairs. He stopped himself and said, "Shit. I'm sorry. Don't go. It's just hard to believe. Cut me some slack." 

Blair froze at the top of the stairs, then turned slowly and began gathering up his clothes into an awkward bundle in his arms. "This from a man who revived his clinically dead partner by following the advice of a ghost and an invisible cat." His body language was completely defeated when he turned to look at Jim after scooping up the last sock, but his eyes blazed with defiance. "Why are my visions less valid than yours?" 

Jim thought about that for a second before answering, "Because I don't want you to have them. They're a burden, not a blessing and I want to spare you." Jim's words clearly surprised Blair, but Jim knew he was right. 

Blair sat down next to Jim, the bundle of clothes on his lap. "I can understand that, believe me. At least yours aren't telling you that you need to mark yourself with a sharp implement." 

"No, mine just told me that I needed to send you away to protect you. And then you died," Jim said, his voice soft as a whisper. 

Blair stroked the top of Jim's head for a moment, comforting, and soothing him. Then he was gone, sitting just far enough away that they weren't touching anymore. 

Jim took a deep breath, trying to gather himself to ask another question he knew he wouldn't like the answer to. It didn't work, so he tried again before giving up and asking "So tell me about these visions. Why...this?" He stroked his hand along the scar at the bottom of Blair's back. 

"After I ... drowned, when I was tied up in the temple. You were having your ... thing in the pool, then trying to help Alex." Blair gulped and shifted away from Jim minutely. "I was trying not to see, not to be there while you were kis...," he shook his head and pressed his eyes closed for a moment. "Anyway, I closed my eyes and tried to go away. After a few seconds, I could see clearly that I was in a jungle. There was a wolf there and a temple and a shaman. Not Incacha--this guy was not Chopec, though he was wearing Chopec face paint--but I could also see a voodoo gris-gris bag on him, a Tibetan dorje, some Zuni fetishes, scarring--basically he carried symbols and power items from all over the world, the Chopec among them." 

Blair looked up at Jim for a minute, obviously considering something, before shrugging one shoulder and continuing. "He congratulated me for getting into the spirit world on my own." Blair's voice slipped into the well-modulated tones of the teacher. "See, that's an important thing for a shaman, the fundamental professional skill. A shaman who can't voluntarily enter the spirit world is just a psycho with a bunch of weird jewelry." Blair shook himself and continued, his voice halting again, "He told me I'd gone through the first stage of my initiation....dying and coming back from the dead." 

Jim stopped Blair before he could launch another mini lecture on the importance of death as an initiatory event. The image of Blair on the ground by the fountain, cold and still and horrifically, _gone_ was not one he could go back to. "So the cutting was a part of that initiation. Marking yourself?" 

A tiny flicker of pleasant surprise crossed Blair's otherwise tense and unhappy countenance. "Yeah." He slumped again before standing and starting to dress. "Mostly," he whispered, the sound almost lost in the rustle of denim as Blair pulled on his jeans. 

Jim grabbed Blair's hand when it came within reach, and tugged him close. "Mostly?" 

Blair looked away, toward the door again, and said, "It's a little more complicated than that, but yeah, mostly that's right." 

Jim caught the flicker of Blair's eyes toward the door, caught the self-protective tension in Blair's body and knew that if he let his partner go out that door, if he let his partner go silent, then everything would be utterly lost. Blair would be gone again, even if he continued to live in the loft. "Tell me about the complications, Chief." 

Blair looked up at him, startled, scared. "Oh, I don't ... You don't really want ..." One last glance at the door and Blair sat back down on the edge of the bed, scooping up the clothes he hadn't donned, tucking his feet up under himself. "When we ... When you brought me back and we shared that vision. The panther and the wolf merged into a big ball of energy." 

Jim nodded, unable to speak. The memory was too powerful. 

"That energy is what brought me back. You ... your life force, so to speak, and mine together made so much more. The shaman told me it was too much, I was out of balance and needed to let some go." 

"Some of what?" Jim asked, his voice rough. 

"Some of that extra life, I guess." Blair shrugged. "It doesn't really translate into words well. I mean it wasn't like he and I were having a nice talk or anything. He knew things and shared them with me and then I knew them. It was all non-verbal." 

Jim thought for a minute, remembering Blair after they got back from Sierra Verde, full of anger and a fire that burned too bright. Too much restless energy. Too much life? Jim's mind fluttered around the edge of an idea that he didn't really want to explore or acknowledge. He knew he had to, so he asked, "So you were bleeding away the excess life?" He didn't even try to restrain the shudder. "But you waited? You didn't do it right away?" 

Blair shrugged and looked away, pressing his lips together, trying to control the slight trembling. When it had mostly stilled, Blair said, "I was fighting against needing to." 

Blair's hands gripped onto the bundle of his shirts and socks, still on his lap. "I think I wouldn't have had to if you'd been ready to...y'know, take that trip right after I ... umm ... came back." He shrugged, as much as he could held close to Jim's chest. Seized by guilt, Jim clenched his jaw tight. Blair must have seen the tension, must have seen what looked like anger on his face and hurried on, "Not that I'm blaming you, man. Really. It wasn't the right time for us and you somehow sensed that." Blair pulled away again and petted Jim's head in the same soothing gesture he'd used earlier. 

Jim was staggered by Blair's words and by the innocent, comforting touch. He cocked his head again and tuned his senses in to Blair's vital signs, his scent and body language. Blair seemed almost defensive, clinging to his clothes as though he were afraid that Jim would make him leave the loft without giving him a chance to finish dressing. 

Jim reached out and pulled Blair close, kissing him softly on the temple and holding him gently. "So why there, Chief?" he asked with another kiss to Blair's cheek. 

Blair was silent for a minute. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft but surprisingly clear, "I don't know how much you know about prana and energy flow, but the base chakra is the seat of life force, primal, even sexual energy. It's at the base of the spine. It seemed like a good place to let that excess energy go. Particularly when you seemed to go from pining for Alex to pining for Veronica and I was so in...." He blushed and stopped suddenly. His heart rate shot up so fast that Jim was reminded of a hummingbird that he'd caught in his father's house as a young boy, caught and released. It had been terrified and wild and its pulse felt like a fine vibration against his fingers. 

"You were what, Blair?" he asked as gently as he could, but Blair just shook his head and was silent. "You were so in love with me that you thought you were going to burst with that too. And I was trying to bury and deny my feelings for you in fantasies of Alex and the reality of Veronica. I was killing you. So you tried to bleed that away as well. That's why you had to cut yourself more than once." Blair froze, even his heart stopping for a moment. "Am I right?" 

Blair nodded and pulled away, though Jim only let him get as far away as the length of his arm. Blair tested the strength of Jim's grip, as he said, hurriedly, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I know you never wanted us to talk about it. I know you just wanted everything kept very light between us. Just fuck-buddies. I don't expect you to ...." Blair's eyes were cast down, his face turned half away. He looked ... ashamed. 

Oh. 

Damn. 

So maybe Blair hadn't known what Jim felt. Maybe there wasn't an unspoken agreement after all, just a lot left unspoken. "Blair," Jim said, stroking Blair's cheek with his free hand, "you know I love you, don't you? Love you more than I can ever possibly say, more than I ever thought I could feel?" 

Blair's eyes jumped up to meet Jim's before falling again. He shook his head a little. "You never said." Blair's breath hitched and Jim could smell a hint of tears. "I know you care for me, like having me around, think I'm fun in bed. But...love, no. That I didn't know." He took a deep breath, then another one. Jim wondered what he was thinking, as he listened to Blair's heart rate slow and his breathing settle down to a steady, even flow. Blair's eyes were still shining with unshed tears though when he turned them up to Jim. "Really? You mean that?" 

When Jim nodded, Blair smiled, faintly at first, then it blossomed into a grin. He moved back into Jim's arms so fast they both fell over backwards on the bed. "Oh, man. I never, ever thought..." He blushed and looked away, a shadow of his former pain still there, then brightened and continued, "It doesn't matter. Everything's okay now. Better than okay." Blair leaned down and kissed Jim passionately. "God, I love you, Jim. I never thought I'd get to say it. I thought I'd be bleeding it away for the rest of my life. It's why I didn't want to tell you about the scars." 

"But I had to," Blair said into Jim's neck before he pulled back away and looked at Jim with relieved eyes. "I had the vision again the last few nights, saw the shaman. I was fighting it again, delaying. I had another vision at the crime scene, though, while I was awake, and I knew it was time to do it again. There would be no way to keep you from seeing the new cut, so I had to tell you." 

Jim knew there was more that prompted Blair to talk, some empathy with Mrs. Andrane, but didn't press. Instead, he squeezed Blair tight, pulling him down into another passionate kiss, before saying, "You won't have to do that now right?" 

Blair shook his head, then thought for a minute and shrugged. "I hope not." He thought for a moment more. "I'm not sure." 

Blair rested his forehead on Jim's for just a second then pulled back to look into his eyes, smiling and happy but with a hint of uncertainty, a trace of a crease between his eyebrows, a crinkle at the corners that Jim hated seeing there. "So you're ready to take that trip now? Not just the trip into being lovers physically, I mean, we've been doing that for months, but the trip into the mysterious, into being bonded somehow?" 

Jim turned his gaze away from the earnest blue eyes that filled his vision, tensed, and fought the urge to say that he was still not ready. Was giving up his rational world the cost of keeping Blair from cutting himself? He fought a flare of anger at Blair for extorting him this way. Damn it! 

Blair sagged slightly and started to move away. "Never mind, Jim. I'm sorry," Blair said, sitting up, reaching for his shirt. His voice sounded broken again, like he had when they came home. When he'd been confronted by the need to tell Jim what he'd done. 

Before Jim could give vent to his anger, the image of Mrs. Andrane, quietly lost in her despair, too shattered to grieve, overlaid what he could see of Blair. He wondered, for just a second, what it had cost Blair to bleed away the love he felt. 

Why would he have done that? 

Looking at his shattered partner, standing now, slowly pulling on his shirts like an automaton, Jim understood that Blair had sacrificed everything in his heart to give Jim what he thought Jim needed with his body. He had expressed his love in sex and blood because Jim refused to talk about their feelings, because he thought those were the only means available to him. With that thought, the anger, the feeling of being extorted, rolled away. 

Jim reached out for Blair, half standing to be able to reach him, and, with an effort, said, "No,Blair. I was just thinking. I'm not sure I'm ready, but I'm willing to try, to start the trip." He tugged gently, pulling Blair back down so they were lying next to each other. "Don't be surprised if I drag my feet, though. It's not you. It's never you. I just... I hate this sort of thing. It's ridiculous, stupid--the sort of poofy bullshit that fills the occult sections of bookstores. Visions and ghosts and spirit animals are right up there with sasquatch, the Loch Ness monster, and casting spells to make people fall in love with you. It makes me crazy that my life is filled with this crap. But it is my life, and it brought me you, and I'll try to let myself believe." 

Blair relaxed and smiled into Jim's chest. "Okay. You know, I agree that sasquatch seems improbable and studies have shown that there's not enough food in Loch Ness to support a creature of Nessie's supposed size. But, surely it's not that hard to believe in stuff that's happened to you. I'm not asking you to believe things you haven't experienced, just the things you have. Deal?" 

Jim smiled, squeezed tight, and answered with all his love and respect for his partner in his voice, "Deal." He kissed Blair, peppering tiny kisses over his eyes and cheeks and chin and mouth and forehead. "God, Blair. How long were you going to continue bleeding yourself for me?" 

Blair looked at him seriously. "As long as I had to man. Whatever I had to do to stay with you was so worth it." He smiled then, lightly and brightly, as if he didn't realize he'd just promised Jim forever. As if this wasn't the most important moment in Jim's life. 

Then Jim blinked and his perceptions shifted and he realized that Blair knew exactly what he had just done and was bursting with the wonder of being able to. With that realization, Jim smiled too, lightly and brightly, and Blair kissed him and a beautiful future stretched out in front of them, full of promise and joy and possibility. 

* * *

End Scars by Sara: sara_merry99@yahoo.com  
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Disclaimer: _The Sentinel_ is owned etc. by Pet Fly, Inc. These pages and the stories on them are not meant to infringe on, nor are they endorsed by, Pet Fly, Inc. and Paramount. 


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